The next trillion-dollar industry will be in the mining sector, the world will soon see a trillionaire who will gather wealth in space.Goldman SachsGroup, Inc. an American multinational investment bank and financial services reported that asteroid mining will be the next big thing in near future and will give birth to world’s first Trillionaire.

The prediction is supported by renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who says: “The first trillionaire there will ever be is the person who exploits the natural resources on asteroids” and further added “There’s this vast universe of limitless energy and limitless resources. I look at wars fought over access to resources. That could be a thing of the past, once space becomes our backyard.”

Approximately within 45 million kilometers of our planet, there are more than 12,000 asteroids,have been identified by NASA.Geologists believe asteroids are a rich source of minerals and precious metals as they are packed with iron ore, nickel, and precious metals at much higher concentrations than those found on Earth.

The Goldman Sachs report says, “While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower. Prospecting probes can likely be built for tens of millions of dollars each and Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6bn.”

As for now, terrestrial mining remains the only means of raw mineral acquisition because the launch and transportation costs of spaceflight are high; inaccuracy in identification of asteroids that are suitable for mining and difficulty in in-situ ore extraction challenges. But this scenario has to change because the resources on the earth are getting depleted.

According to MIT’s Mission 2016, successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output. Considering that just one 3,000-foot wide asteroid is estimated to yield $5.4 trillion worth of platinum, there’s little wonder as to why Goldman Sachs anticipates mining to become a trillion-dollar industry.

Asteroid mining is the exploitation of raw materials from asteroids. Near-Earth asteroids are likely candidates for early mining activity. Their very low change in velocity makes them suitable for use in extracting construction materials for near-Earth space-based facilities, and also reducing the economic cost of transporting supplies into Earth orbit.